Ark II: classic scifi TV series retrospective (video).
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Logan’s Run, Noah’s Ark, and a public information film about recycling were all mashed into one gloriously earnest 1970s kids’ show… then friend, let me wheel Ark II out of the dusty memory bin and onto your post-apocalyptic viewing schedule.
Broadcast in 1976 as part of CBS’s weekend line-up, Ark II was what happened when the future looked bleak, the air looked brown, and Saturday morning telly looked like a place to teach small children Very Important Lessons. It was the 25th century (a nice round 500 years in the future from its air date, just to make it easy on the maths), and civilisation had gone belly-up thanks to pollution, war, and presumably disco. What remained of the world was a Mad Max-lite wasteland patrolled not by leather-clad bikers, but by a surprisingly diverse and morally upright science team travelling around in a nuclear-powered Winnebago.
This was the Ark II: part mobile lab, part command centre, and part deluxe camping van with a built-in jetpack garage and pet chimpanzee. Yes, Ark II may be the only sci-fi series in history where the monkey not only talks, but helps pilot the vehicle. Step aside, Spock.
The show starred Terry Lester as Jonah, the square-jawed, benevolent leader with a fondness for log entries and sombre monologues. With him were Ruth (Jean Marie Hon), Samuel (José Flores), and Adam the chimp, voiced in oddly calm tones by executive producer Lou Scheimer (under a pseudonym, possibly to avoid being pelted with bananas). Together, they wandered the wasteland, dispensing knowledge, solar-powered goodwill, and a lesson at the end of each episode—often involving mutants, feral children, forgotten tech, or a surprisingly large number of confused 25th-century warlords in need of a chat.
Each 25-minute episode began with the Ark’s mission statement: rebuild civilisation, one misunderstood village at a time. What followed was essentially Star Trek: The Winnebago Years—each new community a mystery, each episode a fable, all told at breakneck filming pace (two episodes per week!) on the dusty hills of California’s Paramount Ranch.
The tech, bless it, was classic 1970s futurism. The titular Ark II vehicle looked like something Gerry Anderson would’ve designed after a heavy night on the Babycham. Built on a modified Ford truck chassis and encased in enough fibreglass to make a boat builder weep, it trundled across the screen like a cruise ship with six wheels. Add in the Ark Roamer (a mini-dune buggy) and the Jet Jumper (a jetpack that clearly hated its stuntman), and Ark II had the full set of Saturday morning sci-fi accessories.
Narratively, it veered from the preachy to the surreal. One week they were rescuing cryogenically frozen businessmen (because of course someone thought that was a good idea), the next they were confronting a Don Quixote cosplayer who thought the Ark was a dragon. You couldn’t say it lacked variety. Even Robby the Robot turned up, just to complete the Filmation sci-fi bingo card.
Only 15 episodes were made, but Ark II lived on through reruns well into the late ‘70s, and has since become something of a cult classic among those who appreciate post-apocalyptic cheese served with a side of moral earnestness. It wasn’t edgy. It wasn’t particularly coherent. But by the gods of jetpack safety, it meant well.
And here at SFcrowsnest, we doff our post-apocalyptic helmets to that noble mission. Because for all its recycled costumes, awkward chimpanzee wrangling, and scriptwriting done at warp speed, Ark II remains a gloriously strange artefact from a time when Saturday mornings were meant to save the world.
Just don’t leave your canisters of poison gas lying around next to the feral children, eh?
